Poets Laureate of Great Britain Poets Laureate of Great Britain Poets Laureate of Great Britain by J. Zimmerman Several of the other Laureates were famous poets, particularly Ted Hughes , Robert Southey , John Masefield , Sir John Betjeman , Cecil Day-Lewis , and the current Laureate, Andrew Motion . History and responsibilities. In Great Britain, the Poet Laureate is: The realm's official poet. A member of the royal household. Charged with writing verses for court and national occasions (such as for a Royal Wedding or the New Year). Awarded the position for life. Chosen by the British reigning monarch, from a list of nominees that the Prime Minister compiles after a poet laureate dies. Shortly after the 1668, the position became the Poet Laureate of Great Britain in 1707, when The Act of Union created "Great Britain" as the political name of England, Scotland, and Wales. The name Laureate derives from the Latin laureatus ("crowned with laurel"). It comes from an ancient Roman tradition of honoring a person (especially a poet) who has shown excellence of achievement.

The honor is signified by presenting the person with a wreath of laurel leaves. FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) on the Poets Laureate of Great Britain. What does "Laureate" mean? Answer . Who was the best? Most frequently this is said to be Tennyson . John Dryden (1631-1700). Laureate 1668-88. Appointed in 1668 by King Charles II, who gave John Dryden a formal royal warrant that awarded him the official titles of Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal. This role continued under King James II. As a powerful satirist, Dryden was a strong advocate and spokesman for his monarch, and "the best poet, dramatist, translator and critic of the age" [ Levin in Verses of the Poets Laureate] In 1689, sacked [or fired] by William III for failing to take an oath of allegiance. Thomas Shadwell (1643?-1692). Laureate 1689-92.

The successful dramatist Thomas Shadwell was chosen in large part because he was a Protestant Whig, essential to replace the Catholic Dryden. met an inglorious end in 1693, A weak poet, a heavy drinker, and an opium user, Shadwell died from an overdose of opium, which he took in part to relieve his gout. He was said to have found the laureateship unimportant. Disrespected by John Dryden , among others, for his poetry as well as for his politics. Shadwell wrote a yearly ode on the monarch's birthday, and introduced the tradition of writing a New Year ode; his odes are crashingly uninspired and mechanistic, as if written by an unusually dimwitted computer program. Nahum Tate (1652-1715). Laureate 1692-1715. Born in Dublin, Tate was awarded the Poet Laureate position (and its £100 per year) but the post of Historiographer Royal (and its annual £200) became a separate assignment.

Tate is most known today for his authorship of the widely loved Christmas carol "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night". He is notorious for his (creative?) revision of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, giving it a happy ending. In response to public events, Tate wrote poems for victories against the French (1704), the Act of Union between the Parliaments of England and Scotland (1707), and the signing of the Peace of Utrecht with France (1713). Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718). Laureate 1715-18. Nicholas Rowe was celebrated as a dramatist rather than as a poet. The Poet Laureate's role was now general praise of the sovereign, rather than political and historical. In addition to the annual New Year ode, the Laureate acquired the duty of writing a birthday ode to the monarch, a practice which was to last over 100 years. Laurence Eusden (1688-1730). Eusden never published a book of poetry. His work is mediocre. Colley Cibber (1671-1757).

The poetry of dramatist Colley Cibber was conscientious but not inspired. William Whitehead (1715-85). Laureate 1757-85. [The appointment was first offered to and declined by Thomas Gray.] William Whitehead (a respectable though perhaps dull dramatist) was good humored and amiable. For example, he defended the poetry of Laureates in a comic poem "A Pathetic Apology For All Laureates, Past, Present, And To Come". Whitehead was conscientious, and saw himself as a non-partisan spokesman for the whole country. Astonishingly for a political appointee, he appeared to see no requirement "to defend the King or support the government". Sadly, this reflects the idea that the Laureate's influence had weakened so much that the official poems were unlikely to influence opinions, even though the times were important politically, with rebellion in the American colonies and war in Europe. Thomas Wharton (1728-90). Laureate 1785-90. Professor of Poetry at Oxford, Wharton was the only eighteenth-century laureate who was not primarily a dramatist.

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge admired his work. Henry James Pye (1745-1813). Laureate 1790-1813. Before Pye's appointment, the Sovereign or the Lord Chamberlain (a member of the Royal Household) awarded the Poet Laureateship directly. William Pitt (the first Prime Minister involved in appointing a Laureate) offered the position to Henry James Pye, a politician more than a poet. Thereafter, the Prime Minister submits names for royal approval. Then the monarch commands the Lord Chamberlain to issue a warrant of appointment. Robert Southey (1774-1843). Laureate 1813-43. [In a bizarre double-offer the appointment was offered to two writers concurrently. Fortunately, Sir Walter Scott turned down the approach by Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool.] Robert Southey accepted the suggestion of the post from the Prince Regent. When Scott declined the offer, he suggested Southey also, so the situation ended well. During Southey's tenure, George IV became monarch in 1820, and abandoned the requirement for regular odes to the monarch.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850). Laureate 1843-50. William Wordsworth, at 73, was the oldest Poet Laureate to be appointed. He accepted the position on the agreement that he would not have obligations to write poetry on demand. Since Wordsworth, the job of Poet Laureate has been purely honorary, and appointees have been able to interpret the role as they wish. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92). Laureate 1850-92. [The appointment was first offered to and (to our benefit) declined by Samuel Rogers.] Alfred Tennyson raised the stature of the Poet Laureate hugely. His laureate poems include The Charge Of The Light Brigade (the suicidal charge by the Light Brigade down a valley at Balaclava during the Crimean war). Tennyson's death was mourned publicly by millions. In respect, no appointment was made to the post of Poet Laureate for four years. Alfred Austin (1835-1913). A pompous man, least successful of the Poets Laureate.

Robert Bridges (1844-1930). Uninterested in fame and praise, Bridges wrote little and destroyed his papers before his death. John Masefield (1878-1967). Laureate 1930-67. Born in Ledbury, Herefordshire, England, Masefield apprenticed to be a merchant marine officer. While training, he became ill in Chile, returned to England, then worked in factories and bars in the United States. In 1897 he returned to England, working on newspapers and his own writing (poems, stories, and plays). Masefield published his first volume of poems in 1902. He served during World War I in the Red Cross in France and on a hospital ship at Gallipoli. His simple and moving poems include the famous Sea Fever. Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-72). Laureate 1968-72. Anglo-Irish Cecil Day-Lewis was a poet, critic, and educator who enjoyed the honor of being the Poet Laureate. A student at Oxford with Auden. A committed Communist though naive politically.

Hi poetry are often romantic and melancholy. Also he wrote detective stories (using the pseudonym Nicholas Blake). Sir John Betjeman (1906-84). Laureate 1972-84. Born in Highgate (North London). Sir John Betjeman wrote humorous and accessible poetry. Betjeman commemorated royal events such as The Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977. Ted Hughes (1930-98). Laureate 1984-1998. [Appointed on the refusal of poet Philip Larkin .] Born in Yorkshire. A fierce, sometimes ferocious, poet of the natural and the mythological worlds, of "the struggle in the soil as well as in the soul" [ Levin in Verses of the Poets Laureate] . Also authored poetry and plays for children. Despite the "no obligations" clause, Hughes did write in commemoration of royal events, such as the christening of Prince Henry of Wales in 1985. Andrew Motion (1952-present). Laureate 1999-2012.

Buy Verses of the Poets Laureate: from John Dryden to Andrew Motion , by Phillis Levin (Editor) and Andrew Motion (Introduction): describes and shows the work of the first 19 poets appointed as Poet Laureate since Charles II created the first in 1668. Andrew Motion, an acclaimed poet and biographer, teaches creative writing at the University of East Anglia. He promotes poetry among young people. His poems addressing many public events as well and royal occasions, including the 100th birthday of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. A critic, and a free-form poet who interweaves the personal, the historical, the legendary, and the political. Carol Ann Duffy (1955-present). Buy Selected Poems by Carol Ann Duffy , first female Poet Laureate. Carol Ann Duffy (poet, university professor, playwright, and freelance writer) is the first woman and the first Scottish-born poetry to be appointed Poet Laureate. She graduated with a degree in philosophy from the University of Liverpool in 1977.

Her books like Feminine Gospels (2002) and Mrs Scrooge show her skill in long narrative poems, written in an accessible style and often including surreal imagery. Other work, like Rapture (2005) are poems of passion and love. She also writes poetry (such as The Hat, 2007) for children. Not-quite Poets Laureate of Great Britain. These poets were not Poets Laureate, for the reasons given. Ben Jonson (1573-1637), a playwright and poet, a volatile satirist of explosive temperament and "a great lover and praiser of himself", was not formally appointed as Poet Laureate. John Dryden was the first appointed Poet Laureate, as shown by the official royal record (starts in a new window). At best, Jonson was a "common law" poet laureate (as in "common law" husband). Some believe Jonson to be the greatest English poet and dramatist of the seventeenth century. Many praise his charm and good humor. His vigor and productivity is clear.

Jonson learned the trade of bricklayer, fought with English troops in Flanders, then returned to London to become an actor and playwright, a writer of masques (short pageant-like plays), and a tutor to Sir Walter Raleigh's son. In 1597 Jonson was imprisoned for involvement in the satire The Isle of Dogs, which authorities found seditious. He was tried for killing a fellow actor in a duel in 1598. Imprisioned for this, he converted to Catholicism to be spared death for murder. He was released provided that he forfeit all his possessions, and that he receive a felon's brand on his thumb. Charged with treason for his tragedy Sejanus, His Fall (1603) and then briefly imprisoned for views in Eastward Ho (1604), Jonson (a Catholic) was under deep suspicion after Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot (1605). This situation may have motivated him, shortly thereafter, to reconvert to Anglicanism. He did become court poet to King James I. One of Jonson's most famous poems, "To Celia", begins "Drink to me, only, with thine eyes...".

Buried upright in Westminster Abbey, standing on his feet in the northern aisle of the Nave (and not in Poets' Corner) beneath the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson" William Davenant, or Sir William D'Avenant. After Jonson's death, dramatist Davenant [D'Avenant] inherited Jonson's office and pension, again as an unofficial appointment. Links Poets Laureate of the United States of America . Books about the Poets Laureate of Great Britain. Buy Verses of the Poets Laureate: from John Dryden to Andrew Motion , by Phillis Levin (Editor) and Andrew Motion (Introduction): describes and shows the work of the first 19 poets appointed as Poet Laureate since Charles II created the first in 1668. Related Books. British Recluse Refused Opportunity to Be Laureate : Poet, Jazz Critic Philip Larkin Dies at 63 - latimes British Recluse Refused Opportunity to Be Laureate : Poet, Jazz Critic Philip Larkin Dies at 63 December 03, 1985 |BURT A.

FOLKART | Times Staff Writer Philip Larkin, whose reclusive life style and limited poetic output earned him the sobriquet "hermit of Hull," died Monday. He was 63 and his death was attributed to breathing difficulties after throat surgery. He died in Nuffield Hospital in Hull, a small northeast English town where he led a secluded life as a librarian living in a simple house darkened by drawn shades that protected his cherished books. At his death his influence was felt far beyond the four slim volumes of poetry, two novels and two collections of essays that comprised his written legacy. When the post of poet laureate became vacant in 1984 after the death of Sir John Betjeman, 30%--a plurality of the 120 British poets polled by the Times of London--favored Larkin. But Larkin turned the job down, saying he had published only the four volumes of poetry between 1945 and 1974 and none in the last 10 years. Woke Up 'Screaming' Larkin later told an interviewer he sometimes dreamed about being poet laureate and having to write verses for ceremonial occasions.

He would "wake up screaming." And of his slim output, he said: "I didn't give poetry up, it gave me up." Despite his limited production he was England's best-selling poet after Betjeman. When his last volume, "The High Windows," was published in 1974 it sold 6,000 copies in three weeks. "High Windows" included the poem "Cut Grass," illustrative of Larkin's simple style in which he composed sparse stanzas for ordinary folk: Cut grass lies frail Mown stalks exhale Long, long the death. Jonathan Barker, poetry librarian of the British Arts Council told the Associated Press that "one of the most extraordinary things about him (Larkin) was that his poems held the attention of people who didn't read much poetry. . . . He wasn't like those modernists who want the reader to work hard to understand the poem." The tall, bespectacled and balding poet was born in Coventry, the son of the city treasurer. He once described his boyhood as an agony "of forgotten boredom." His native shyness was further complicated by a stammer that sometimes forced him to communicate by written notes.

As a youngster he became interested in jazz, and his written criticisms for the London Daily Telegraph outnumbered by far his verses. He had been the newspaper's primary jazz critic for the last decade. In that role he was taken with the jazz traditionalists much as he was with orthodox poets and much preferred Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Bix Beiderbecke to the progressive musicians of his time whom he found "pinched, unhappy and febrile." Yeats an Early Influence As a young poet he fell under the influence of William Butler Yeats, but abandoned that infatuation after he found he could not adapt his homelike phrasing to the Irish poet's style. More recently he listed Thomas Hardy, Dylan Thomas and Betjeman among his idols. Sadness and failure permeated his works, which included "North Ship," "The Less Deceived" and "The Whitsun Weddings." "Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth," he once said. A bachelor, Larkin was a librarian all his life in such towns as Shropshire, Leicester and finally Hull, where he had been at the university for 30 years. "I don't really notice where I live," he once said.

He also refused to attend the readings or deliver the lectures expected of successful poets. "I couldn't bear that," he said several years ago. "It would embarrass me very much. I don't want to go around pretending to be me." MORE: Philip Larkin to get Poets' Corner memorial - BBC News BBC News Philip Larkin to get Poets' Corner memorial 17 June 2015 Image caption Larkin is one of Britain's best-known 20th Century poets Philip Larkin is to be honoured with a memorial in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. A floor stone dedicated to Larkin - who died in 1985 - will join the names of the country's best-loved poets including WH Auden, TS Eliot and William Wordsworth. It will be unveiled on 2 December 2016, the 31st anniversary of Larkin's death. The last poet to be honoured was Ted Hughes in 2011. With poems like The Whitsun Weddings and This Be The Verse - which contains his famous musings on "your mum and dad" - Larkin is widely regarded as one of Britain's finest 20th Century poets.

The decision to honour him was made by the Dean of Westminster, the Very Rev Dr John Hall. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Philip Larkin's memorial stone will be unveiled in 2016 "Philip Larkin is one of the great poets of the 20th Century in English and it's been pressed on me by a number of his colleagues and friends that it's the right time to memorialise him," Dr Hall told the BBC. Prof Edwin Dawes, who chairs the Philip Larkin Society, said Larkin's words were quoted more frequently than those of any of his poetic contemporaries. "The memorialisation of Philip Larkin in Poets' Corner will be warmly welcomed by his many admirers in all walks of life," he said. "We are delighted that in 2016 Larkin will take his place at the very cultural heart of the nation, in Westminster Abbey amongst Britain's greatest writers." Born in Coventry in 1922, Larkin studied at Oxford and had his first poems published in 1940. He took up the position of librarian at the University of Hull in 1955 and, in the same year, published his acclaimed collection The Less Deceived.

His last collection High Windows was published in 1974. In December 1984, a year before his death from cancer, he was offered the chance to succeed Sir John Betjeman as Poet Laureate but declined, being unwilling to accept the post's high public profile. The posthumous publication of Larkin's letters gave an often unflattering insight into his inner life and led to accusations of racism and misogyny. Despite the dent to his reputation, in 2003 Larkin was chosen as the nation's best-loved poet of the last 50 years, in a survey by the Poetry Book Society. Poets' Corner became established at Westminster Abbey after Geoffrey Chaucer's remains were interred in a tomb there in 1556. Philip Larkin :: English Language Poet :: English Poetry Poet, Novelist, Jazz critic, Poet Laureate (declined) Nationality English Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL, (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist and jazz critic.

He spent his working life as a university librarian and was offered the Poet Laureateship following the death of John Betjeman, but declined the post. Larkin is commonly regarded as one of the greatest English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century. In 2003 Larkin was chosen as the "nation's best-loved poet" in a survey by the Poetry Book Society [1]. Larkin was born to Sydney and Eva Larkin in Coventry, a large provincial city in the English Midlands. He was educated at King Henry VIII School in Coventry, and St John's College, Oxford where he met Kingsley Amis, a lifelong friend and frequent correspondent. In late 1943, soon after graduating from Oxford, he applied for, and was appointed to, the position of municipal librarian at Wellington, Shropshire. In 1946, he became assistant librarian at University College, Leicester (Kingsley Amis got his idea for Lucky Jim on visiting Larkin and seeing the common room of Leicester University). In March 1955, Larkin became librarian at the University of Hull, a position he retained until his death.

Contents 5 External links Career Larkin's early work shows the influence of Yeats, but his later poetic identity was influenced mainly by Thomas Hardy. He is well known for his use of colloquial language in his poetry, partly balanced by a similarly antique word choice. With fine use of enjambement and rhyme, his poetry is highly structured, but never rigid. Death and fatalism were recurring themes and subjects of his poetry; "Aubade" being an example of this. The Less Deceived, published in 1955, marked Larkin as an up-and-coming poet. He was for a time associated with "The Movement". The publication of The Whitsun Weddings in 1964 confirmed his reputation. The title poem is a masterly depiction of England seen from a train on Whitsun. In 1972 he wrote the oft-quoted "Going, Going", a poem which expresses the romantic fatalism in his view of England which was typical of his later years. In it, he prophesies a complete destruction of the countryside, and expresses an idealised sense of national togetherness and identity.

The poem ends with the doom-laden statement, "I just think it will happen, soon". High Windows, his last book, was released in 1974; for some critics it represented a falling-off from his previous two books,[1] yet it contains a number of his much-loved pieces, including "This Be The Verse" and "The Explosion", as well as the title poem. "Annus Mirabilis" (year of wonder), also from that volume, contains the frequently quoted observation that sexual intercourse began in 1963 ("rather late for me"). Besides poetry, Larkin published two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), and several essays. Larkin was also a major contributor to the re-evaluation of the poetry of Thomas Hardy, which had been ignored in comparison to his work as a novelist. Hardy received the longest selection in Larkin's idiosyncratic and controversial anthology, The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse (1973).

Larkin was by contrast a notable critic of modernism in contemporary art and literature; his scepticism is at its most nuanced and illuminating in Required Writing, a collection of his book reviews and essays; it is at its most inflamed and polemical in his introduction to his collected jazz reviews, All What Jazz, 126 record-review columns he wrote for the Daily Telegraph between 1961 and 1971, which contains an attack on modern jazz that widens into a wholesale critique of modernism in the arts. On the death of John Betjeman, Larkin was offered the post of Poet Laureate, but declined it. Larkin, who never married, died of oesophageal cancer, aged 63, and is buried at the Cottingham Municipal Cemetery near Hull. Larkin's career-long companion and muse was the academic Monica Jones. She and Larkin had a holiday cottage at Haydon Bridge where they spent many summers together.

Legacy Larkin's posthumous reputation was affected by the publication of Andrew Motion's Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life (1993) and an edition of his letters (1992), which revealed his obsessions with pornography, his racism, his increasing shift to the political right wing, and his habitual expressions of venom and spleen. These revelations have been dismissed by the author and critic Martin Amis (son of Kingsley Amis), who argues that the letters in particular show nothing more than a tendency for Larkin to tailor his words according to the recipient, rather than representing Larkin's true opinions. Despite controversy about his personal life and opinions, he remains one of Britain's most popular poets; three of his poems, "This Be The Verse", "The Whitsun Weddings" and "An Arundel Tomb," featured in the "Nation's Top 100 Poems" as voted for by viewers of the BBC's Bookworm in 1995 [2]. Media interest in Larkin has increased in the twenty-first century. His poem At Grass is featured in one Anthology booklet of the GCSE English exam, and Afternoons appears in another, Best Words.

Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings collection is one of the available poetry texts in the AQA English Literature A Level syllabus, whilst High Windows is offered by the OCR board and An Arundel Tomb in the Edexcel board Poetry Anthology. The Larkin Society was formed in 1995, ten years after the poet's death; its president is Anthony Thwaite, one of Larkin's literary executors. In 1964 Larkin was interviewed by Sir John Betjeman for the BBC programme Monitor: Philip Larkin meets John Betjeman [3]. The film, together with the original rushes is stored the Larkin archive at the University of Hull [4]. Larkin was the subject of the South Bank Show in 1982 [5]. Larkin did not appear on camera although Melvyn Bragg, in his introduction to the programme, stressed the poet had given his full cooperation. The programme featured contributions from Kingsley Amis, Andrew Motion and Alan Bennett. Bennett read several of Larkin's works on an edition of "Poetry in Motion", broadcast by Channel 4 in 1990 [6].

In his acclaimed play The History Boys Bennett would quote from Larkin's MCMXIV and the character of the Headmaster, a geography graduate from Hull, referred to Larkin as 'the Himmler of the accessions desk' [7]. Manic Street Preachers included a quotation from Larkin on the sleeve of their 1992 debut album Generation Terrorists and in 1993 Terry Eagleton subjected Larkin to a critical mauling on Without Walls: J'accuse Philip Larkin [8]. In 2002 Sir Tom Courtenay debuted [9] his one-man play Pretending to Be Me at the West Yorkshire Playhouse [10] before transferring the production to the Comedy Theatre in London's West End. An audio recording was released in 2005 [11]. In 2003, BBC Two broadcast a play, titled Love Again, that dealt with the last thirty years of Larkin's life. The lead role was played by Hugh Bonneville [12] and in the same year Channel 4 broadcast the documentary Philip Larkin, Love and Death in Hull [13].

After lying undiscovered in a Hornsea garage for over two decades, an unprecedented collection of Larkin audio tapes were found in 2006. The recordings were made by the poet in the early 1980s [14]. Extracts can be heard during a Sky News report [15].

Bibliography "Homage to a Government (read) "This Be The Verse" (read) "Annus Mirabilis" (read) Collected Poems 1938–83 (1988) "Aubade" (read) (first published 1977) "Party Politics" (last published poem) Fiction A Girl in Winter (1947) ISBN 0-87951-217-2 "Trouble at Willow Gables" and Other Fiction 1943–1953 (writing as "Brunette Coleman") ISBN 0-571-20347-7 Non-fiction All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961 – 1971 Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955 – 1982 (1983) Further Requirements: Interviews, Broadcasts, Statements and Book Reviews 1952 – 1985 Brynmor Jones Library, 1929-79 (1979) ISBN 0-8595-8538-7 Miscellaneous The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English

 Verse (as editor) (1973) Books about Larkin Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life, Andrew Motion (1993) ISBN 0-571-17065-X Selected Letters of Philip Larkin, Anthony Thwaite editor (1992) ISBN 0-571-17048-X The Philip Larkin I Knew, Maeve Brennan, Manchester University Press (2002) ISBN 0-7190-6275-6 Philip Larkin and English Poetry, Terry Whalen, University of British Columbia Press (1986) ISBN 0-7748-0232-4 Pretending to be Me: Phillip Larkin, a portrait, Tom Courtenay (2005) ISBN 1-4055-0082-4 Philip Larkin: The Poet's Plight, James Booth (2005) ISBN 1-4039-1834-1 First Boredom Then Fear: The Life of Philip Larkin, Richard Bradford (2006) ISBN 0-7206-11

47-4 Notes ^ see for example, Andrew Swarbrick, Out of Reach: The Poetry of Philip Larkin, Palgrave Macmillan, 1995 (ISBN 0-312-12545-3) Larkin's Grave Philip Larkin Quotes - Page 1 - WorldofQuotes.

Philip Larkin Quotes 2 Famous Quotes by Philip Larkin 8/9/1922 - 12/2/1985 x About Philip Larkin Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL was an English poet and novelist. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill and A Girl in Winter, but he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows. He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, articles gathered together in All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961ï¿½71, and he edited The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse. He was the recipient of many honours, including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was offered, but declined, the position of poet laureate in 1984, following the death of John Betjeman. After graduating from Oxford in 1943 with a first in English language and literature, Larkin became a librarian.

It was during the thirty years he served as university librarian at the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull that he produced the greater part of his published work. His poems are marked by what Andrew Motion calls a very English, glum accuracy about emotions, places, and relationships, and what Donald Davie described as lowered sights and diminished expectations. Eric Homberger called him "the saddest heart in the post-war supermarket"ï¿½Larkin himself said that deprivation for him was what daffodils were for Wordsworth. Influenced by W. H. Auden, W. B. Yeats, and Thomas Hardy, his poems are highly structured but flexible verse forms. They were described by Jean Hartley, the ex-wife of Larkin's publisher George Hartley, as a "piquant mixture of lyricism and discontent", though anthologist Keith Tuma writes that there is more to Larkin's work than its reputation for dour pessimism suggests.

IN SEARCH OF A LAUREATE - MAKING BOOK ON BRITAIN'S NEXT OFFICIAL POET - NYTimes.com IN SEARCH OF A LAUREATE:MAKING BOOK ON BRITAIN'S NEXT OFFICIAL POET By John Gross Published: July 15, 1984 THE death of John Betjeman in May not only removed from the scene a notable poet - and in Britain, at least, a notably popular one - but also left vacant the office of Poet Laureate, which Betjeman had held since 1972. Now someone else will have to be found to turn out verses commemorating jubilees and great occasions and royal milestones. The appointment, formally made by the Queen but on the Prime Minister's recommendation, is not expected to be announced until the autumn, but it has already provoked a great deal of comment in Britain - far more, I think, than was the case while Betjeman and his immediate predecessors were being chosen. Leading bookmakers are even offering odds on the main contenders, and finding plenty of takers. Philip Larkin is the clear favorite so far; other names who have suddenly found themselves propelled onto the front page include Roy Fuller and D. J.

Enright, Gavin Ewart and the Cornish poet Charles Causley. Whoever wins the race will succeed to a position with a long if decidedly uneven pedigree. The first official laureate, John Dryden, was appointed in 1668, and though the patent confirming him in office was being cheerfully unhistorical when it asserted that the post had once been held by ''Sir Geoffrey Chaucer,'' he did in fact have several unofficial predecessors. A number of poets had received royal pensions before him, including Edmund Spenser (and at one level ''The Faerie Queen'' could reasonably be thought of as a laureate poem). Ben Jonson's splendid court masques were an acknowledgment of the permanent stipend he received from James I and then Charles I, who augmented it with an annual payment of Canary wine. Both Jonson and his successor at court, William Davenant, were laureates in all but name; but it was only with Dryden that the office was established on a public, quasi-constitutional basis. Dryden was a natural laureate, fitted for the post by outlook, ambition and poetic temper.

Conceiving of his appointment in highly political terms, he was also able to bring to it his gifts as a satirist; the most notable single achievement of his laureateship was his lampooning of Charles II's enemies in ''Absalom and Achitophel.'' Ultimately politics cost him the job. He was deprived of it when William III came to the throne, and succeeded by his old enemy Thomas Shadwell. Since then, however, laureates have always been appointed for life. It would take a stout heart to read through all the loyal effusions and fustian birthday odes of the 18th-century laureates - Nahum Tate, Colley Cibber and the rest. The only poet of importance to be offered the laureateship during the period was Thomas Gray, who turned it down; it then went to the respectable but thrice- forgotten William Whitehead, who was to have the delicate task of writing official odes for George III during the American Revolution. By the end of the century, with Henry James Pye as incumbent - a name, if John Gross is an editor of The New York Times Book Review. nothing else, to remember - the reputation of the laureateship had reached a low ebb.

Pye's successor, Robert Southey, was a far more considerable figure, though as laureate his chief claim to fame is that he inspired Byron to write a brilliant burlesque of his absurd poem about the arrival of George III in heaven, ''A Vision of Judgment.'' He was followed in his turn by Wordsworth, an interesting appointment - or one that would have been if it had been made a generation earlier. The patriotic sonnets Wordsworth wrote during the Napoleonic wars were the kind of thing a poet laureate ought ideally to have been producing at the time. But at 73 he was virtually played out, and the best that can be said about his one official effort as laureate, his ode on the installation of Prince Albert as Chancellor of Cambridge University, is that it was not actually written by him but by his son-in-law. And then, at Prince Albert's instigation, came Tennyson (who, the night before the invitation reached him, had a dream in which the Prince came and kissed him on the cheek, and he responded, ''Very kind, but very German'').

Shortly after Tennyson's appointment the Duke of Wellington died, and he rose to the occasion with a famous funeral ode, the first of a long series of poems that confirmed his contemporaries in the belief that they had been blessed with an ideal laureate. A belief that is easy enough to understand; if his laureate poems are hardly what he is most valued for today, they still form an inseparable part of his achievement. The century that opened with Henry James Pye closed with Alfred Austin. After Tennyson's death Gladstone, who was Prime Minister at the time, considered Swinburne, but faltered; then the Tories returned to power and their leader, Lord Salisbury, opted for Austin, who was a seasoned Conservative journalist. The lukewarm response that greeted his appointment soon turned into outright dismay - or hilarity - when he rushed into print with a poem celebrating the Jameson Raid (a murky episode that preceded the outbreak of the Boer War).

According to literary folklore this contained the couplet We rode across the veldt As fast as we could pelt, 1 [AUDIO] PHILIP LARKIN – PERHAPS MY FAVOURITE POET – Tribal Interloper tribal interloper Leave a comment Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), but he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974).

He contributed toThe Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, articles gathered together in All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71 (1985), and he edited The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973).[1] He was the recipient of many honours, including the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.[2] He was offered, but declined, the position of poet laureate in 1984, following the death of John Betjeman. After graduating from Oxford in 1943 with a first in English language and literature, Larkin became a librarian. It was during the thirty years he served as university librarian at the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull that he produced the greater part of his published work. His poems are marked by what Andrew Motioncalls a very English, glum accuracy about emotions, places, and relationships, and what Donald Davie described as lowered sights and diminished expectations. Eric Homberger called him “the saddest heart in the post-war supermarket”—Larkin himself said that deprivation for him was what daffodils were for Wordsworth.[3]Influenced by W.

H. Auden, W. B. Yeats, and Thomas Hardy, his poems are highly structured but flexible verse forms. They were described by Jean Hartley, the ex-wife of Larkin’s publisher George Hartley (The Marvell Press), as a “piquant mixture of lyricism and discontent”,[4] though anthologist Keith Tuma writes that there is more to Larkin’s work than its reputation for dour pessimism suggests. MORE POETRY AUDIO BELOW Larkin’s public persona was that of the no-nonsense, solitary Englishman who disliked fame and had no patience for the trappings of the public literary life.[6] The posthumous publication by Anthony Thwaite in 1992 of his letters triggered controversy about his personal life and political views, described by John Banville as hair-raising, but also in places hilarious.[6] Larkin was chosen in a 2003 Poetry Book Society survey, almost two decades after his death, as Britain’s best-loved poet of the previous 50 years, and in 2008 The Times named him Britain’s greatest post-war writer. Rate this:

Question: Who was offered, but declined, the post of Poet Laureate in 1984 after the death of Sir John Betjeman?
Answer: Philip LARKIN